Because of HBO, Everybody Desires a ‘White Lotus’ Getaway. Can Thailand Deal with It?

By Sarah Stodola, Grist

“This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.”

Season 3 of the hit HBO present White Lotus premiered this week, opening on a gnarled department in a dense jungle, the digital camera monitoring upward earlier than touchdown on a monkey, perched attentively. The shot establishes nature as a major theme that continues as we watch this season’s company arrive, then disperse into villas cascading down a lush Thai hillside, every of them afforded ravishing views over a seemingly pristine island and sea.

In actual life, this resort is the 4 Seasons Koh Samui, and due to each its visible attraction and the recognition of the present, Thailand is anticipating a serious tourism increase.

The nation has skilled the ability of showing on screens throughout the globe earlier than. On the daybreak of the brand new millennium, the movie The Seashore premiered, starring Leonardo DiCaprio at his post-Titanic peak in addition to the setting itself — the otherworldly Maya Bay, a virtually enclosed slice of the Andaman Sea on the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh, inside a nationwide park. It was a well-liked snorkeling spot earlier than The Seashore, however the movie supercharged curiosity and followers started flocking to Maya Bay, with upwards of 5,000 vacationers and 200 boats overwhelming the small seashore and its marine ecosystem day-after-day.

The nation went together with it, caught within the all-too-common lure of relying on income from the very tourism that jeopardizes its infrastructure and surroundings. In the meantime, trash wrecked the seashore, boat anchors and air pollution killed the reef, and wildlife disappeared.

Now, 25 years later virtually to the day after The Seashore got here alongside, Thailand has its subsequent Hollywood-induced frenzy on its arms, and it’s hoping to be higher ready this time round.

Whereas The Seashore portrayed paradise-seekers rejecting the normal markers of trip luxurious by beginning their very own commune on a secret seashore, White Lotus showcases these very markers, then lampoons them. Every season ushers in a brand new set of rich malcontents and the locals who make their holidays run easily. Each productions share a way of paradise gone mistaken. They in truth skewer the very notion of the seashore as paradise, which would appear to make them awkward conduits for promoting a location. But, a advertising funds can’t purchase the sort of promotion they’ve offered.

“Appearing in White Lotus Season 3 allows us to reach a truly global audience,” stated Chompu Marusachot, the New York director of the Vacationer Authority of Thailand. “We are continuously striving to enhance and expand our tourism efforts and infrastructure to welcome even more visitors in the future.”

However as Maya Bay confirmed, extra vacationers can imply extra issues. In 2018, the Thai authorities had lastly seen sufficient and shut the place down till additional discover. Maya Bay reopened in 2022 with a strict system in place to attenuate future injury. Boats are not allowed to enter the bay, docking as a substitute at a pier elsewhere on the island. The brand new most of 4,125 day by day guests, arriving in designated time slots, stroll alongside a brand new boardwalk to achieve the bay, the place they’ll not swim or convey non-reef-safe sunscreen. Maya Bay continues to shut to guests for 2 months yearly for rehabilitation.

Koh Samui, in contrast, has been residence to a bustling tourism trade lengthy earlier than White Lotus. At the moment it has 630 inns and resorts. One in all them, the 4 Seasons, opened in 2007 and occupies a comparatively serene stretch of shoreline in comparison with different components of the island, whose 3.5 million annual guests be part of an area inhabitants of 70,000.

Each areas are coping with the challenges of local weather change. Final 12 months, Thailand suffered record-high sea temperatures, which led to a mass coral bleaching occasion and the demise of seagrass, which in flip led to a mass die-off of dugongs and different ocean life. Storms and floods are additionally getting extra damaging. In 2024, Thailand skilled its worst flooding in a long time, affecting greater than half one million households.

Koh Samui is a case research in how tourism can add to these issues. “Since tourism rapidly developed without proper infrastructure planning and environmental management, Samui is facing critical problems in terms of waste management and water resources,” stated Kannapa Pongponrat, a professor at Thailand’s Thammasat College.

The pipeline bringing water from the mainline to Koh Samui has proved inadequate as tourism has grown, resulting in water shortages on the island. Sediment from development of resorts and inns has broken coral reefs and different ocean life. And trash usually accumulates on the edges of roads and within the ocean itself. Thailand is among the world’s largest contributors to marine plastic air pollution, with tourism having been recognized as the first supply of the issue within the Gulf of Thailand, the place Koh Samui is situated.

The Thai authorities nonetheless labored exhausting to woo creator Mike White’s juggernaut of a present, providing beneficiant tax breaks and different incentives that in the end shaved as a lot as $4.4 million from manufacturing prices for White Lotus’ third season. The payoff? A close to assure of extra tourism income. After Season 2 aired in 2022, the 4 Seasons’ San Domenico Palace, Taormina, which stood in for the White Lotus resort, bought out for all of 2023, whereas journey curiosity for Sicily spiked. The 4 Seasons Maui, the setting for Season 1, noticed a 425 % improve in visitors to its web site after the present aired. A consultant for the 4 Seasons on Koh Samui stated that since being introduced because the “White Lotus” for Season 3, the lodge has already skilled a surge in searches and bookings.

Because the nation seeks to extend tourism, plans are underway to start development on a cruise ship terminal for Koh Samui in 2029. An airport enlargement is about to begin this 12 months. New lodge improvement continues apace. A second waterline from the mainland is being constructed.

On the identical time, the federal government has taken steps to mitigate environmental impacts over the previous decade or so. The 2015 Marine and Coastal Assets Administration Act has been harnessed to ban dangerous actions such because the discharge of wastewater into the ocean and “sea walking,” the place vacationers stroll the ocean flooring hooked as much as oxygen-fed helmets. The nation’s Roadmap on Plastic Waste Administration goals to scale back plastic use and improve recycling practices. All the best way again in 2014, the federal government launched the “Save Water, Save Samui” marketing campaign to encourage sustainable water use on the island.

In line with specialists, although, these efforts are typically toothless. “The Thai government has laws and regulations,” stated Suchana Apple Chavanich, professor of oceanography at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn College, “but in this case they need to make sure that those laws and regulations will be followed.” The plastic waste roadmap, for instance, doesn’t embody an enforcement mechanism, possible limiting its effectiveness. Pongponrat pointed to unchecked unlawful development on Koh Samui, usually with inadequate water drainage, which exacerbates flooding issues.

Chavanich additionally famous that many inns and different vacationer companies on Koh Samui have been working independently to make Koh Samui greener over the previous decade or so, however these efforts in flip might use extra authorities help. “This has to be a collaboration between [the Thai] government, local government, public and private sectors,” she stated.

For its half, the 4 Seasons stated it has launched into a variety of initiatives. It eradicated all single-use plastic in 2019, treats its grey water on property, and partnered with Thailand’s Division of Marine and Coastal Assets on a reef conservation mission that has to this point reintroduced 16,000 coral items to the reef offshore from the resort. The resort stated it’s creating further sustainability measures in mild of the anticipated White Lotus impact, however was unable to supply element presently as plans are nonetheless being permitted.

Consultants agreed that extra motion might be essential to counterbalance the injury from overtourism on Koh Samui. The crowds are coming, proving that at the same time as local weather change and rising seas threaten the whole mannequin of the seashore trip, its cultural cachet endures. Three seasons in, White Lotus is that includes nature prominently, however at all times with ominous overtones — the fruit of a pong pong tree in a single villa seems to be poisonous, a big monitor lizard spooks one of many company. It’s virtually as if the island is attempting to ship a message. 1 / 4 century after The Seashore, whether or not that message might be obtained stays an open query.

This text initially appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/arts-culture/white-lotus-season-3-thailand-tourism-koh-samui/.

Grist is a nonprofit, unbiased media group devoted to telling tales of local weather options and a simply future. Be taught extra at Grist.org

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This Story Was Initially Printed by Grist.

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